MusicalsObituaryRichard Adler obituary
Lyricist and composer best known for the hit musicals The Pajama Game and Damn YankeesRichard Adler, who has died aged 90, was the wunderkind of Broadway in the 1950s. In his early 30s, the composer and lyricist had two Tony award-winning musicals with his partner, Jerry Ross, and it seemed as though the pair could do no wrong. After all, shows did not come much bigger than The Pajama Game (1954) and Damn Yankees (1955), sensational hits on both sides of the Atlantic, both running for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway.
The songs – Hey There and Hernando's Hideaway from The Pajama Game, Heart and Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets) from Damn Yankees – were played on radio shows all over the world. With their song Rags to Riches, recorded by Tony Bennett in 1953, they had become sure of financial stability, which was boosted by the shows. But, in 1955, Ross died of complications from lung disease at the age of 29. Adler, who had undoubtedly played as much a part in the success of the duo as his partner, was lost. He never again repeated the early triumphs.
He was born in New York, the son of a concert pianist. Music was undoubtedly in his blood but Adler was largely self-taught. Nevertheless, it was the words that went with the music which attracted him most. As he would say in the lectures to which he devoted his later years, classical music held little appeal to him as a young man. Popular tunes were something else.
After attending Columbia grammar school, New York, and the University of North Carolina, Adler served in the US navy from 1943 to 1946. He joined an advertising agency, but his lucky break was meeting the songwriter Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls), who introduced him to Ross. Each had been looking for a partner and, at their first meeting, they immediately hit it off. The success of Rags to Riches encouraged the pair to work on a show, but they began slowly, at first content to contribute to other people's productions, in particular the revue John Murray Anderson's Almanac.
The Pajama Game (it retained its American spelling when it opened at the Coliseum theatre in London, in the days before that building was turned into an opera house) was an unbelievable triumph. No one could have predicted that a show set in a clothing factory, and dealing with a trade union's arguments with management, would be a recipe for success. But it took the fancy of critics and the public alike, and soon became a money-spinning movie starring Doris Day.
Adler and Ross's second show was perhaps even more successful, despite the fact that Damn Yankees was about baseball and any number of baseball-based shows had failed to make a mark on Broadway. Theirs was a new version of the Faust story – the hero is willing to sell his soul to the devil for a chance to be young again and play for a successful baseball team. Based on Douglass Wallop's The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, it had the advantage of not just the songs, but also a charismatic star, Gwen Verdon, playing the devil's assistant, Lola. The inevitable film adaptation, in 1958, also starred Verdon.
When Ross died, there were still a few of their numbers left in the filing cabinet – notably Everybody Loves a Lover, which became a hit for first Day and then the Shirelles. Adler also wrote the lyrics and music for Kwamina, a musical set in Africa, which earned him further Tony nominations but only had a brief run on Broadway in 1961, in a production starring his wife, Sally Anne Howes. He produced and wrote the music for Music Is, based on Twelfth Night, which opened and closed on Broadway in December 1976. He began to focus on producing, but even Rex (1976), with music by Richard Rodgers, could not replicate Adler's previous success. Before long, he took to writing classical music including Memory of a Childhood (1978), Retrospectum (1979) and the Pulitzer-nominated Yellowstone Overture (1980).
Adler also composed music for television, including Little Women and The Gift of the Magi (both 1958). Had anyone asked him to name his biggest splash, he might have nominated President John F Kennedy's birthday tribute in New York in 1962; Adler produced and staged the show, at which Marilyn Monroe sang her famous Happy Birthday, Mr President.
His autobiography, You Gotta Have Heart, was published in 1990. Adler, who was divorced from Howes, is survived by his wife, Susan Ivory; his children, Andrew, Katherine and Charles; and two grandchildren. Another son, Christopher, died in 1984.
Richard Adler, lyricist, composer and producer, born 3 August 1921; died 21 June 2012
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